Physics

Anyons don’t fit into either of the two known particle kingdoms. To find them, physicists had to erase the third dimension.

Einstein’s equations describe three canonical configurations of space-time. Now one of these three — important in the study of quantum gravity — has been shown to be inherently unstable.

Two ways of approximating the ultra-complicated math that governs quark particles have recently come into conflict, leaving physicists unsure what their decades-old theory predicts.

The human mind has long grappled with the elusive nature of time: what it is, how to record it, how it regulates life, and whether it exists as a fundamental building block of the universe.

Physicists have proposed extra cosmic ingredients that could explain the faster-than-expected expansion of space.

And why is the black hole at the center of our own galaxy so dim?

The “pinball” model of a slipping fault line borrows from the mathematics of avalanches.

The first official evidence of a key imbalance between neutrinos and antineutrinos provides one of the best clues for why the universe contains something rather than nothing.

Freeman Dyson — physicist, mathematician, writer and idea factory — died on February 28, but his vitality lives on.